Michael Hornsby

Finding an ideological niche for new speakers in a minoritised language community

ABSTRACT This article examines some of the linguistic and ideological tensions resulting from language shift and subsequent revitalisation, using Breton as a case study. As a result of the opening up of ideological spaces in discourses on what it means to be a Breton speaker in the twenty-first century, the appearance of so-called ‘new’ speakers highlights a number of points of contestation. Operating within contexts which are becoming increasingly ‘postvernacular’ [Shandler, J. (2004). Postvernacular Yiddish: Language as a performance art. The Drama Review, 48(1), 19–43; Shandler, J. (2006). Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular language and culture. Oakland: University of California Press] in nature, the use of Breton by these speakers can be viewed as more symbolic rather than communicative in many respects. Postvernacular use exists on a continuum of linguistic practice and vernacular use of Breton is still apparent, of course, and often indexed as the only ‘authentic’ and legitimate use of Breton. This article examines some alternative linguistic practices within the Breton-speaking community and how ‘new’ speakers attempt to find for themselves an ideological niche in this community.

Minority Semiotic Landscapes: An Ideological Minefield?

If the linguistic landscape encompasses a variety of signs and (place)names in various territories, regions and urban centres (Landry and Bourhis, 1997), then our attention tends to be drawn, not unreasonably, to the visual aspect of such ‘linguistic objects that mark the public space’ (Ben-Rafael, 2009, p. 40; our emphasis). It is this simultaneous focus on both the linguistic and the visual that leads us to locate linguistic landscapes in a wider, semiotic framework, since the linguistic aspect is but one component in an interface between cultural, social, economic and (re)productive processes; moreover, ‘landscapes possess “semiotic” properties, in other words, they contain signs in them that can be decoded by those with intimate knowledge of them’ (Selman, 2006, p. 53). Our approach follows recent research in the area which seeks to examine wider fields of investigation than just the linguistic, such as ‘visual images, non-verbal communication, architecture and the built environment’ (Jaworski and Thurlow, 2010, p. 2). As a result, semiotic analysis takes place on a variety of levels and in the case of signage in minority languages, the indexicality of the sign tends to dominate debates, though decoding can also focus on the iconic aspects. Such indexicality, we argue, is very often decoded through the prism of language ideology, especially in situations of linguistic minoritization.

Constructing a Lemko Identity: Tactics of Belonging.

Lemko identity in Poland is contested in a number of contexts, including social, linguistic and political domains, among others. The members of this minority have to learn to negotiate multiple identities, not only from an in-group perspective but also in interactions with the majority community in Poland. This paper examines how the Lemkos attempt to do this, with varying degrees of success, and the tensions which arise as a result. In particular, a Lemko identity is examined from the perspective of ideologies of language in order to draw out the major themes which are apparent in this re-emergent minority.

‘New’ speakers in the heartlands: struggles for speaker legitimacy in Wales

ABSTRACT Educational initiatives in many minority language communities in Europe and beyond are producing ‘new speakers’ of the languages in question. The status of such speakers is often contested, however, and many people who have been through immersion education in a minority language can find themselves on the fringes of the language community of which their schooling was meant to make them members. This article explores the cases of new speakers of Welsh in Wales and includes data in particular from the heartlands – West Wales – in which a number of new speakers discuss their membership of Welsh-speaking communities, the difficulties they sometimes face and, crucially, how they manage to negotiate their own sense of speakerhood under such conditions. Also examined in this article are discourses on the same topic which appear in online blogs, and which would appear to point to a certain commonality of experience which is not confined to just those areas of Wales where Welsh is, or recently was, a community language, but is further echoed by new speakers in other parts of Wales outside the heartlands who have had similar experiences.

Introduction: The Realm of the Material Culture of Multilingualism

The introduction describes the field of material culture of multilingualism as a synthesis of two important provinces of human interest – ‘multilingualism’ and ‘material culture’. It starts with laying out some philosophical views on material culture from earlier times to the recent forays into the perception of materialities. The main thrust of the volume is the exposure of natural ties between language, cognition, identity and the material world. A special section of this chapter traces the gradual realization of applied linguists of the importance of ‘things’ and ‘places’ for the construction of meaning and communication. In putting forward the material culture of multilingualism as a distinct domain of scholarly interest, the author-editors call for encompassing the entire material culture realm, that is, the whole environment of multilinguals. They argue for going beyond geographical placement, to include private places and in-between spaces, in addition to public ones, traditionally considered with regard to language and for appreciating features of material culture as dynamic, changeable in time, space, form, and value thus linking languages with the physical environment where they are used. This introduction also contains a description of the rationale, scope and the objective of the volume, and gives a brief overview of the contributions in the volume.

The Material Cultures of Multilingualism in a Minoritized Setting: The Maintenance and Transformation of Lemko Language and Culture

Minority cultures and associated efforts to maintain and promote their linguistic varieties in situations of unbalanced multilingualism face many challenges. Pressure to adapt to modernity and globalization mean that cultural and linguistic minorities are having to find new and creative ways to express their identities and collective sense of community. This article examines the situation of the Lemko language in Poland, estimated to be spoken by around 11,000 people (Przynaleznośc narodowo-etniczna ludności, GUS. 2011. Material na konferencje prasową w dniu 29. 01. 2013. p 3. Accessed on 6 Mar 2013). Educational programmes, such as the Russian-with-Lemko degree taught at the University of Cracow, or the teaching of Lemko in selected schools in the traditional Lemko areas, are complemented by events and festivals which might equip younger generations of speakers of the language with the cultural material they require in order to achieve ‘authentic speakerhood’. This concept will be examined in the present article, drawing on fieldwork undertaken in 2012 and 2013 at a number of sites in Poland, and linking it to the concept of the “material culture of multilingualism” (Aronin L. Stud Second Lang Learn Teach 2(2):79–191, 2012) in order to explore the role cultural and semiotic artefacts play in the construction of a Lemko multilingual identity in the twenty-first century.

In Search of Authentic Yiddish

Yiddish stands out as a severely endangered language which, apparently, refuses to die. This chapter will focus on new speakers of Yiddish, a non-territorial language which nonetheless has distinct cultural and ethnic associations. Data for this chapter have been collected over the course of the last few years with new Yiddish speakers in London, Brussels and Edinburgh. What is apparent are the distinct discourses of, and attitudes toward traditional and new speakers of Yiddish. When some commentators, such as Katz (2015) Beer (2009), Wex (2009) or Fishman (2001a) talk about the Yiddish of new (and here we can translate this as mostly ‘secular’) speakers, it is constructed as imperfect or faulty, being, as Fishman considers, ‘replete with Anglicisms and Germanisms’, since these speakers ‘curiously reject that which lives and is growing while they cleave to that which is admittedly wilting before their very eyes and is patently beyond their ability to revernacularize’ (Fishman 2001a: 89). As far as traditional (i.e. mainly religious) speakers are concerned however, similar features can be overlooked: ‘[i]n contrast to many other bi-and multilingual contexts, parents never corrected or complained about simultaneities in girls’ efforts to speak Yiddish’ (Fader 2009: 93). Yiddish is thus an example par excellence of a divided speech community, a term often used in minority language communities (see references to this in Chapter 2).

New Speakers: The Future of Minority Languages?

The case studies on Breton, Yiddish and Lemko have shown how three quite distinct groups of speakers/language users engage in discourses of legitimacy and authenticity in the face of language attrition in the wider community. The reduction in the use of minority languages is something which is widely viewed as problematic and, as previously mentioned in Chapter 1, is often accompanied by ‘an ideologically charged discursive space’ with an over-arching ‘ideology of language endangerment’ (Dobrin, Austin and Nathan 2007: 59). In connection with this, M.C. Jones (1998a: 323) wonders if the appearance of non-traditional forms of minority languages is ‘the pre-terminal phase of some dying languages in particular socio-political contexts’; and for Makoni and Pennycook (2007: 26), changes, such as the appearance of new speakers, may indicate a ‘shift as a reflection of a creative adaptation to new contexts’. In this chapter, and with the above in mind, I examine the ways in which the issues of authenticity and legitimacy are being tackled by users of two other languages which have either been deemed extinct (and now revived) or ‘barely alive’ (Fishman 2001b: 227). The idea that problems over authenticity and legitimacy are possibly resolved with the disappearance of ‘native’ speakers is one that is occasionally voiced, as Pentecouteau found: While engaged in fieldwork, I have heard some activists who are very committed to the Breton movement say that they are waiting for the total disappearance of native Breton speakers so that they can work without this ‘burden’ … the behaviour of new speakers does little or nothing to validate an already existing knowledge of the language. (My translation) Lors de travaux d’observation, j’ai entendu des militants tres investis dans l’emsav dire attendre la disparition totale des bretonnants de naissance afin de pouvoir travailler sans ce « fardeau » … l’action des nouveaux locuteurs ne porte pas ou peu a valoriser une connaissance encore vivante. (Pentecouteau 2002: 175)

Legitimate Speakers of Authentic Breton: Who Decides?

One reason many minority language speakers struggle to remain users of their minority language is the lack of prestige it is often afforded. This can lead to situations where the public ‘performance’ of otherness, indexed through the use of a minority language in a public space, can be self-censored by minority language speakers in an attempt not to draw undue attention to themselves. But it is not just societal pressure from majority language monolingual speakers which can lead minority language speakers to feel inadequate or out of place. Sometimes the othering comes from within the minority language community of speakers itself. Not only do some minority language speakers feel a sense of awkwardness or inappropriateness by the public use of a non-majority language, they can sometimes feel their own level of competence in the minority language or indeed their very right to use it can be challenged by other minority language speakers. They experience, in this way, a sense of delegitimization, either in the way they speak the language, or more fundamentally, a sense of lacking sufficient ‘speakerhood’, as not counting as a legitimate minority language speaker or user, as exemplified in Section 1.2 with reference to Welsh. In this chapter, the idea of being a legitimate speaker of Breton is explored, with claims centred on legitimate language and legitimate speakerhood being the focus of the case study. Such claims are often contested, of course, and attempts which aim to render these claims as illegitimate are also explored. The case of Breton is particularly rich in such detail and the debate on such matters has a comparatively long and somewhat acrimonious history. Despite the specificity of the example of Breton, the situation in Brittany does allow direct and useful comparisons with other situations of language minoritization and can help us work closer to a typology of ‘new’ speakers of minority languages.

Who Speaks for the Lemko Language

Among the small Lemko community in Poland, debates over who legitimately speaks the language but also speak for the language are rooted in the idea of linguistic authority already discussed in Chapter 1. Some younger Lemkos are finding their way back to the language, thanks to the opening up of more liberal linguistic opportunities since 1989. Lemko pupils are being educated in Ukrainian-language schools in Poland and furthermore, in the traditional Lemko speech area in the south-east of the country, are receiving instruction in the Lemko language. However, their sense of being Lemko speakers can be undermined in that their own linguistic output is increasingly showing, not unnaturally, contact features with Polish, leading to a sense of ‘inauthenticity’ as speakers, which can affect their selfperception as legitimate heritage bearers or owners of the Lemko language. As a result, Lemko speakers construct their own varied senses of speakerhood in a situation of rapid language shift. Attempts to standardize the language have failed to secure any universal consensus among speakers and this, coupled with the uncertain status of Lemko as an identity marker, mean that different varieties of the language, and different ways of accessing speakerhood, are often contested by different members of the Lemko community. In particular, new speakers can find accessing authentic speakerhood to be problematic, and can be unsure which alignments they need to follow in order to be accepted by other speakers. By way of an example of this contestation, the translation of The Little Prince into Lemko is discussed towards the end of the chapter, in particular how this translation has become a focal point for ideological battles over which speakers of Lemko are ‘good enough’ to represent the language nationally and internationally.